Monday, March 21, 2011

Spring Break Camping

Well, we did it and I did survive! We went camping for Spring Break. All in all... it was fun and full of memories, both good and bad. I know you're wondering about the bathrooms... they were both ok and yuck. There were two different bathrooms to go to. The one that is located in the small field behind our tent was an outhouse, pretty much. It was in a building, not one of those tin shacks, but this outhouse was a cement building with metal potties inside and a hole down into the "center of the earth" or so I "affectionately" called it. BUT, there was also an "indoor" potty up at the top of a hill to the right of our tent. The indoor potty was actually pretty clean for a campsite potty. So that was the one I would hike to as much as possible.

The first couple of nights were pretty nice. A nice cool day and chilly evening. A snuggily type of night, great for camping. Then Thursday happens. The wind, that is already blowing pretty hard changes and comes from a different direction. It starts to get hot. Camping starts to not look so fun. We had a great tent, but no tent can handle high winds. We thought that the tent would buckle (which it did collapse a bit and then pop back up) or blow away. A collapsing tent is pretty scary for a two year old who is trying to take a nap inside. Also, those tents get pretty hot inside. Poor baby (and me) could not take naps inside those tents once it got pretty hot. So to stop our insanity, Thursday afternoon we all packed up and went to Brenham, Tx. and visited the Bluebell factory. We had a great time. We were too late for the tour... but for 6 kids, 4 under the age of 2... they really didn't mind. As long as we were still gonna get ice cream. Which we did. $1 for a serving. It was very nice to feel like we weren't gouged in prices... like I sometimes feel we are everywhere else.
We ended up leaving on Friday, instead of Saturday. Awesome! The winds were still pretty crazy and when the power hungry park ranger told us to move our car, which my husband very cleverly parked to block the wind from blowing our tent away, we were done. I told her we could move the car, we had just put it there to keep our tent from buckling or blowing away, she responded with, "It would be nice if we could all do that, but your car is causing erosion." Seriously???? I just looked at Daniel and he read my mind, "ok, pack up... we are going home." There just was no way we could stay another day in the hot sun and crazy winds... and yucky toilets. So we packed up and headed home, but first stopped at Sonic for a frozen treat.

Our memories:
- Smores, yum!!!
- Yes, Daniel did bring his guitar and we did listen to him strum it the first night. No, we did not sing Kum by Yah.
- Climbing trees
- Playing at the camp playground
- BlueBell factory
- Crazy winds
- The pottys... thats all I have to say about them
- Beautiful scenery
- The bees that thought they were welcome at our campsite
- Ky waking up multiple times in the night and the only way to keep him from fussing and waking up the entire camp grounds, was to nurse him
- Micah's impersonation of Auntie - "Storm James, come back here!!!"
- My first time camping and us being under prepared for a few camp items and Lindsay saving the day and letting us borrow theirs... whether it was cooking spray, bee killer or matches... yes, we forgot to bring matches.
There are so many memories from our first time camping. Im glad we went. (I should have taken more pictures.)








4 comments:

Kristyn said...

Ya! I am glad that you guys had a good trip :) I am excited to do that with my kids too. I really really really hate the bathrooms and showers. I almost would want to go all week without a shower than to step into the shower with bugs! YUCK! When we can camping, i brought flipflops to shower in :) But I couldn't imagine bathing the kids! Sheesh! Way to go girl! Your kids will have such great memories!

Kelly said...

What?! No "Kum By Yah"?!! I just can't camp with you unless that one is on the playlist! Hahaha...glad you survived and peed in the center of the earth :)

ChrissyK said...

I agree with you Kristyn, the showers are yuck. And it is completely tempting to not shower at all. But, we have to, I guess and so we do the flip flop thing... for everyone. It's a must! :O)

Yes, Kelly, I can mark that off my bucket list now. Peeing into the center of the earth, CHECK!

ashley said...

Glad you survived camping & that you have some good memories from your experience! There's always a down side to camping. The last time I went camping with friends, we took turns going to the bathroom in a church because we were all so excited to use a clean restroom!